© Sandra Cartaso
Ministers of Health from all over the country agreed to maintain the use of the chinstrap in interior spaces to prevent respiratory diseases, despite the fact that different districts announced flexibility in this regard. In addition, the officials meeting at the Federal Health Council (Cofesa) reinforced the need to continue maintaining ventilated environments and agreed to suspend the mandatory compliance with the two-meter distance.
The provinces of Mendoza and the city of La Plata announced that the use of face masks will be optional as of Monday and Tierra del Fuego and the city of Buenos Aires lifted the mandatory use within schools for initial, primary and secondary school students. high school starting this Monday.
At the Cofesa meeting on Friday, the representatives of the city of Buenos Aires withdrew from the meeting, annoyed by the criticism they received from other provinces.
Although in Argentina, and following eight consecutive weeks of decrease in the number of coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant, a plateau in the trend was registered in the last week, what was added was the detection of early circulation of a high number of cases of influenza, especially in the pediatric population.
For this reason, Cofesa reported that both the committee of experts that advises the Ministry of Health, and the Health-Education working group, in which the Pan American Health Organization, the Argentine Pediatric Society and Unicef participate, recommended “continue with the mandatory use of the chinstrap including school environments given the time of year and the possible concomitant circulation of different respiratory viruses”.
In any case, the Minister of Education, Jaime Perczyk, announced this Friday that “from now on, each educational jurisdiction will be able to make the decision to use it or not, in line with what their Health Ministries decide.”
Meanwhile, the mayor of La Plata, Julio Garro, also announced on Friday that “we have decided, by decree, that as of Monday the use of face masks in public spaces, municipal offices and means of transport in La Plata will go to be optional. Also in stores, with their owners being the ones who order its implementation”.
After learning of the measure, the Buenos Aires health portfolio issued a statement in which it said that the decision of the community chief from La Plata is “irresponsible” and that it was “taken without any type of scientific and health knowledge.” The Ministry of Health of the Province of Buenos Aires remarked that “in the territory of Buenos Aires, the primary competence in health is provincial, through the health portfolio.”
As reported by the Ministry of Health of the Nation, currently in the country there is “a population with high immunity once morest SARS-CoV 2 (natural and by vaccines), but susceptible to other respiratory viruses that two years ago did not circulate or had low circulation. (mainly in children who are one of the main transmitters of respiratory viruses)”. As of this Monday, one million doses of influenza vaccine will be distributed in the country, which will begin to be applied from Friday, March 25.
